What If?
by YouAreAlmostOutOfMilk
Summary: What if Percy was actually from WW1 era Britain? I wrote this for the centenary of the signing of the Treaty of Versailles, because I couldn't get it written in time for the actual centenary, like an idiot.


**AN: It's terribly written and probably historically inaccurate, but I wanted to publish something for the centenary year. In this they're British (somewhere on the coast, idk where) because that will make slightly more historically accurate than if they weren't. I also don't know very much at all about how any navy works. When you see any errors please point them out and I will fix them. I own nothing recognisable and this entire fic is dedicated to Pebbles. Less than three to you, my kæreste. **

**PUBLISH ON THE 28****TH**

What If?

When the war had broken out Percy almost signed up. He would've if Annabeth had not just married him and if she were not pregnant. Instead he threw himself into his work. He worked at a bakery, but he was young and fit, and it hurt him every time he saw another man he knew, or any man he didn't, proudly in uniform. But he would sacrifice the world for Annabeth, and she needed him.

It hurt even more when girls, some not that much older than his sister, started giving him (and other men) white feathers. When they started calling him (and other men) cowards. When they told him (and other men) that his excuses were just that, excuses.

It hurt less when his daughter was born. And again, when they named her Psyche in hopes that she would have a happy ending, even if it didn't look like it. And again, when Annabeth's family showed up to the christening. It hurt least when other people he loved held her.

As the war went on and his friends slowly died off Percy began to feel glad that he hadn't signed up, that he could see his two favourite people every day and that he was still alive. Being given feathers didn't hurt so much anymore. Not when so many people who had been so optimistic at the start of the war had stopped believing that it would all be over by Christmas and that it would be an easy win for Britain.

In January of 1916 it was announced that men would start to be conscripted and Percy panicked. Until he realised that it only applied to unmarried men.

In June of 1916 conscription started to apply to married men.

Percy signed up before he could be conscripted, as he had heard that conscripted men went straight to the army and he truly wished to avoid that fate. He passed his medical with flying colours. Having lived in a seaside town for all his life he joined the navy. It felt like he trained for less than a week before he was put on a ship. In actuality he trained for several.

The first letter Annabeth received from him was short and almost illegible but all the letters he wrote were like that. The first letter had been written on the first day of training. The first letter was focused around one thing. The desire to come back home and find Annabeth and Psyche safe.

All the letters Percy wrote were like that. Had anyone told a pre-war Annabeth that she would one day treasure receiving letters that were essentially the same and that came every week without fail she would have laughed at them. But now she found Percy's letters to be the highlight of her week. Part of it was that it meant Percy cared enough to write her a letter every week, when he'd always struggled with writing. Part of it was the rare moments when Percy talked about the other people aboard his ship as he had always been able to carry a tale. Most of it was because it meant that Percy was alive and that he was well enough to write to her.

On his part Percy was settling into the navy far better than he thought he would. He missed Annabeth and Psyche (and Sally and Estelle and Paul and so many others) and he would not stop missing them but as his ship spent most of its time blocking various German ports he had not yet seen any action and so had ample time to write to and receive letters from his friends and family.

The people on his ship came from all over, and many of them had been sailors before the war had broken out. Percy became acquainted with all of them, though there were only a few that he felt he would stay in contact with, providing they and him survived the war. One such person was a cousin of Annabeth's.

Percy had never met him before, the man's mother having distanced herself, and therefor her son, from the family when Annabeth was only just out of infancy. It was a remarkable coincidence that they would have ever met.

Despite being from an estranged branch it was quite evident that Magnus and Annabeth were family. For one, they had shared the same surname. Of course, she had become Mrs Annabeth Jackson when she and Percy had married, but her maiden name would always be Chase. Asides from the shared surname, they both bore a family resemblance that, when compared to other members of Annabeth's family, would have made it more unlikely than not hat they would be related.

Percy wrote rather extensively, for him at least about that. And that Magnus had a sweetheart back home, who went by the name of Alex.

Another thing he would have written about, had he not thought that the letters would be opened and read before being sent, was his walking in on two of his co-workers, and friends, when they were kissing. The friends in question were Nico Di Angelo and Will Solace. Percy was, in all honesty, not as surprised as he might've otherwise been. Neither did he feel any pressing need to report what he saw to any higher-ups, or the law. He had known of the navy's reputation. Both men in question were good people, and his friends, and he did not have such a negative outlook as many of his contemporaries. He only wished to write of it to Annabeth because he told her everything, and because he knew that she too would not wish to report them to anyone.

That was one of very few occurrences of interest, including in warfare. He had missed the only major sea-battle of the war so far, and it looked that the rest of his war would be spent the same way he had been spending it so far.

He was right, and both he and his ship and his crewmates got through the war in one piece. That is a lie. One of the ships engineers, a man a little older than Percy, by the name of Charles Beckendorf lost a leg in an accident. In an odd twist of fate his fiancée lost her leg but a few days after, a fact that was much joked about on the ship.

And so, the war ended. Percy returned home, to his wife, a child who was no longer a toddler, his job at his mother's bakery and a small sea-side town that could have been any ware along the British coast line. He and Annabeth heard many stories about soldiers unable to adjust to life at home, through shell-shock or unemployment or reasons to numerous to name. He was not part of that number.

He had began to leave his war experience behind, asides from staying in contact with those members of his crew who he wished to stay in contact with. That did not change when the Versailles Treaty was finalised. He read about in the papers of course, but that was it. He, and his family, lived a normal, civilian life. And it was as lives go, a good one.


End file.
